


Touch

by lamardeuse



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:36:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the supreme irony that it was the touch of a Wraith that had John so keyed up now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> For TheGrrrl

John awoke slowly, shifting under an oppresive feeling of pressure and warmth. When he opened his eyes, he realized the source of the feeling; Rodney was lying with his head on John's chest and one arm flung possessively over his belly, clinging to him in sleep like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood.

Okay, so John had almost died of old age yesterday; it was understandable that McKay was inclined to be clingy. After John's nasty crack about finally showing up, Ronon had taken him aside and kindly pointed out that he was being an asshole, then proceeded to tell him how desperate McKay had been to find him, and how hard he'd worked to pinpoint his location. After which yes, John had felt like an asshole, but when he'd gone to apologize after being released from the infirmary Rodney had only cradled John's head in his hands and kissed him like he actually had come back from the dead, and the speech John had prepared had gone right out of his head. What the hell, it hadn't been much of a speech anyway.

Before they'd started this – whatever this was – John had thought about how Rodney's hands would feel on him. He liked Rodney's hands; they were strong and nimble and quick, and he'd caught himself staring at them as they danced over the puddlejumper console or fiddled with DHD control crystals one too many times for him to be able to plausibly deny it. After they started fucking, and he'd found out exactly what it was like to have Rodney's hands on his body, he wasn't the least bit disappointed. Once he knew he had permission, Rodney seemed to take great delight in exploring every square inch of John's skin, until there wasn't a place left on him that hadn't experienced the press of Rodney's fingertips, the slow slide of his palms.

He wondered sometimes, though, if Rodney felt shortchanged; compared to McKay, John was clumsy and awkward whenever he tried to reciprocate, his own hands hovering and uncertain of where to touch or what to do. His only other encounters with guys had been furtive, impersonal couplings, where the only touching you did was designed to get one another off as quickly as possible. Whenever he was with Rodney he felt like a ham-fisted teenager, unable to accomplish anything more sophisticated than a kind of uncoordinated pawing.

It was the supreme irony that it was the touch of a Wraith that had John so keyed up now. Earlier, he'd let McKay take the lead, because Rodney had this way of taking over, and after the day John had had, that was just fine with him. But now he was restless and uncomfortable and vaguely angry, and his skin itched like it was crawling with ants. He resented the fact that the Wraith had called him a brother, and he wanted to kill Kolya slowly and often, and he wished that he could have one goddamned week without anybody, including himself, being afflicted with anything more serious than a hangnail.

And he wanted to touch Rodney. God, for some bizarre reason he thought that now he could, and maybe he could do it right. Was it nearly dying or having fifty years put back into him with a single touch, and who the hell cared? Right now it was time to do, not think.

Looking down, he watched his hand reach out, watched his fingers weave their way into Rodney's hair. Rodney'd gotten a haircut recently, and his hair was prone to standing up, but unlike John's it was ridiculously soft and fine, like a little kid's.

Rodney snorted and jerked, and John tensed and fought the urge to pull back. “Hmmm,” Rodney said, mouth curling into a smile before his eyes opened and locked with John's. John could tell the moment he hit over fifty percent awake, because his dreamy expression edged toward a frown.

“What?” John asked, still stroking.

Rodney shook his head slightly; John spread his fingers over the top of Rodney's cranium, absorbing the movement. “Nothing. You just – you don't usually do. That.”

"Thought I'd like to start. That okay with you?" The words came out harsher than he'd intended, and Rodney blinked at him sleepily before nodding and closing his eyes again. John closed his own eyes for a moment before his other hand came up to glide over Rodney's shoulders.

Rodney turned his face away so that all John could make out was the top of his head and the tip of his nose. After a moment, he let out a long, shuddering breath, and John's heart stopped.

"Rodney, you - "

"Just give me a minute, okay?" Rodney rasped, trying for acerbic and failing miserably. "It's kind of a shock to wake up and find your being alive isn't a hallucination."

"Jesus," John breathed, hands stilling.

"Don't stop," Rodney whispered, "please."

“Okay,” John soothed, hands starting up again. “Okay.” God, he didn't have a single fucking clue what to do here.

Rodney seemed to know it, because he didn't take long to recover, only a few more breaths, until the last one sounded steadier, easier. “Sorry,” he said finally, raising his head, though his gaze stayed on John's chest.

“Don't be,” John murmured. He'd had a similarly sharp, almost painful moment of relief when he'd first seen Rodney inside that hive ship.

Rodney wiped at the corner of his eye. “Well. Now that I'm completely mortified, I think I'll go.” He pushed himself up and off John's chest.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” John's hands closed around Rodney's biceps, halting him midway. “Don't go.”

Rodney froze, finally meeting John's eyes, and hell, this was the part John always had a lot of trouble with. “I wanted to – to, uh. Touch you,” and okay, that sucked beyond his wildest expectations.

Rodney stared at him, startled. “You – but you touch me all the time.”

John shook his head. “Not the way you do. Not the way I – want to.” His hands gentled on Rodney's arms, sliding slowly up and down. “I'm no good at this.”

Rodney's eyelids drooped as John continued to stroke. “I don't know,” he murmured, “from where I'm sitting, you seem to be doing fairly well.”

“Speaking of sitting, why don't you come a little closer?” John asked, arching an eyebrow. Rodney's mouth quirked and he moved to obey, settling on his side beside John.

“Better?” Rodney asked, propping himself on an elbow.

John rolled onto his side to face him. “Better,” he agreed. He raised his hand again, and this time it might have shaken a little before it connected with Rodney's chest. Rodney watched him, wide-eyed, expression completely devoid of all defences. John envied him that.

He let his fingers do the talking, let them caress and explore, let them dip into the hollow of Rodney's collarbone and tickle the inside of his elbow and catch in his navel, then press into his hipbone and cradle his hardening cock like a precious, fragile possession.

He heard a sharp gasp and looked up again to find Rodney flushed and panting, his eyes screwed shut. “Okay,” Rodney breathed, “you're definitely good at this.”

“Glad to hear it,” John murmured, fingertips gliding around the shell of Rodney's ear, making him shiver. “Think I can shoot for great?”

Rodney nodded convulsively. “Oh yes, I think that's – ah, a n-noble goal.”

Maneuvering on the narrow bed was always tricky, and it was ten times trickier with a Rodney who was half-gone with arousal. When John looked on it as an engineering challenge, though, it became easier. Within about a minute he was straddling Rodney's lap, slicking a condom over him with trembling fingers before rising up and guiding him inside.

“Christ, yes, John, I, oh,” Rodney sighed, and then John was touching every square inch of Rodney's cock and his hand was splayed over Rodney's heart and neither of them could say much of anything for a while, but that was just fine with John. He was more of a doer than a talker anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> First published March 2007.


End file.
